


Cassette

by Trash



Category: Original Work
Genre: F/M, Incest, Twincest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-05-20
Packaged: 2020-03-08 14:11:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18896212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trash/pseuds/Trash
Summary: Someone once told her ghosts are just memories.





	Cassette

Raine dreams of a car crash. 

She awakes with a start, jerked from sleep. Sweating, sheets tangled round her legs. In the dream it was twisted metal, broken glass scattered in her lap like confetti. She was braced, waiting for the pain. 

She can hear the music that was playing. The last song the people heard in her dream.

A hand finds hers and she freezes momentarily, her mind still reeling. It’s Roo, of course it’s Roo. She squeezes back lightly and he mumbles something into his pillow.

“I had the dream again,” she says. The light on the smoke alarm blinks rhythmically on the ceiling. Who programmed that, she wonders. Who decided how many times it should flash. 

“The surgery one?”

“The car crash.”

“Mmm,” he says, “s’okay. You don’t drive.”

“That’s not the point,” she says, but Roo’s breathing has already evened out. She pushes back the damp sheets and consults her cards. Shuffling them calms her, soothes her, but a fist grips her heart when she draws the ten of swords.

A painful ending.

*

Before he left to go travelling, Raine made Roo a mix tape. A real one, not a playlist on a freemium streaming service. A cassette, with her loopy handwriting in Afrikaans on the label, “wanderlust.” 

Then she found him again, by chance. “The Universe orchestrated this,” she said. And Roo, worn down by ten years of travelling, laughed. Not unkindly. Said, “If you think so, sis.”

“I know so,” Raine had said, because this was fate, it had to be.

“You’re stoned,” Roo said.

Definitely “Probably.” 

He kissed her anyway.

*

The cassette, the one with her loopy handwriting, is in the tape deck of Roo’s battered jeep. He drops her off at work, the cassette playing. And Raine feels haunted as she steps out. Someone once told her ghosts are just memories. She says as much.

Roo pushes his sunglasses onto the top of his head. They tangle in his dreads. “I think it’s frowned upon to be stoned at work,” he says, smiling.

“Never stopped you.”

“Ah, but I’m not a nurse.”

“I’m not stoned,” Raine says. She needs validation, suddenly. Older by two minutes is still an older brother.

“I know. Now fuck off, I’m going to be late.”

“Ek het jou lief.”

“Jy ook,” Roo says. 

Raine closes the door and walks away. Doesn’t look back.

*

Raine dreams of a car crash. 

She dreams of a cassette unravelled.

When she awakes Roo isn’t in bed, he’s on the balcony smoking. Lit by the moon, a silhouette. Her love for him feels like a tide – uncontrollable. She pads out to him naked and picks the joint from between his fingers. 

“Dream again?”

“Mmm,” she says, taking a hit. “What do you dream of?”

Roo shrugs. “I used to always dream the same thing as you,” he says. “Twin thing.”

“Twin thing,” she says. When they were kids people thought they were witches. “What about now?”

“I don’t dream.”

Raine knows that’s a lie.

*

“Don’t drive to work today,” she begs him the next day. 

He looks at her, eyes studying her intensely. After a minute he says, “Okay. Okay.”

She kisses him desperately, and when they make love it’s urgent.

*

A semi runs a light, takes out a school bus. 

The dreams stop after that.


End file.
